Appropriate Use of Technology

Category 2

The activity I selected is a 6-8th grade level activity that originated in the Apache culture.

In this lesson the author clearly labels and states the standards being met by the activity and the learning target of the lesson in student friendly writing. The author used NCTM standards.
Objectives:
Students will:
• Collect and display data regarding the moves in a game of Sticks and Stones
• Use probability to estimate the average number of turns needed to win a game
• Modify the rules to create a different game
Purpose of this game mathematically is for the student to take data of the different ways the Popsicle sticks can land and find the probability of each scenario happening.

How you play the game
• Set the rocks up in a circle in sets of 10.
• There should be 4 groups of 10 in the circle.
• Take the Popsicle sticks and decorate one side and leave the other side blank.
• After the sticks are decorated you are ready to play. Throw the sticks to see what you get (Ex: 2 decorated and 1 blank).
• Follow the rules on how to move based off what shows on the sticks.


Materials needed for this activity
• projector
• graph paper
• pencil
• Popsicle sticks
• Rocks.
The teacher can show the activity on the projector and demonstrate using the computerized sample to model the way the game is played.
In this lesson the students are given a warm up game to get a good handle of the rules. I am not sure if this warm up game is beneficial. I worry that a student might identify the answer during the warm up. It would be something I would have to watch the first time I taught it and modify if necessary.

Students will need math skills to successfully complete this task. They will have to be able to take data using hash marks, graph the data on a bar graph, and be able to divide to find probability.

The anticipatory set for this activity is explaining the game as an Apache pass time. Explaining the importance of the game to the apache and allowing them to decorate the sticks how ever they chose based of the story about the games history. I like how this anticipatory set is interdisciplinary and if this activity was taught in 8th grade students might have already studied North American Indians and have some prior knowledge with the Apache tribe.

The sequence of activities is it will be direct instruction, guided practice, independent practice; reflection on how the project went.

Formative assessment will be happening as the game is going on. I will watch to see how the students take the data, graph their data and move their game piece to see if they understand the separation of the rocks in groups of tens. The summative assessment will be when the student turn in their raw data, graphed data, and their percentages for each possible throw.

To close this lesson I feel it is important to explain again what was the purpose of the activity was (collect and display data based off the moves in the game, use probability to estimate the possible number of turns it would take to win the game, be able to modify the rules to create a different game) and some common errors/achievements on the project.

Adding or subtracting the amount of stones used in the game could modify this lesson. For example instead of having 4 sets of 10 stones you could make it 8 sets of 5 stones. You may also want to use a hundreds board instead of the circle board to help students practice their place value system.

When reflecting on this project I will look for how students understood the relationship between the experiment results that they collected and the theoretical probability of each outcome. I will also reflect on if the students were engaged in the activity? A big part that I will need to focus on is was the game a motivating mathematics activity or did it provide a distraction from the objectives that were to be learned? Sometimes mathematical games can turn into “fun time” instead of further developing understanding. Another questions I will ask myself are, “How could the game be modified to eliminate those distractions?” and “Did the students meet the objectives of the lesson? If not how can I change the lesson for the better?”

Some of the methods and teaching strategies I noticed were guided practice. The students watched as the teacher explained the activity and showed them a computerized example of how the game was played (modeled). The students were then asked to play the game and ask question anytime they did not understand (guided practice). This was a great strategies were the students were able to prove to the teacher they understood the rules and process of the game. The students then played the game and took data (independent). By doing a lesson like this the students have had seen the game 2-3 times before they play it and take official data. This allows them to feel comfortable with the game and focus more on the data collection than the rules.

When looking at this lesson plan I did not notice that the students were asked to critically think. It was a great lesson in the idea of students collecting data, manipulating the data on a graph, and then being able to explain that data in probability outcomes. It was very straightforward and the process was clear-cut where the teacher wanted the students to start and finish.

If I were teaching the lesson I would have set up timetables for myself to gage the amount of time spent at each area of the lesson so that the lesson flowed smoothly. I also noticed there was no literacy component to the lesson. I would also add a modification for students that got done early or this activity was too easy for. For example asking them bigger concept questions or adding more stones and sticks to see how the probabilities changed.

http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?id=L585